emily rose | the poem flying off the page

Special KEROUAC Anniversary Edition, No.5 In Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of

ON THE ROAD

THE KEROUAC KONNECTION, 2007

EMILY ROSE | The Poem Flying Off the Page

In my once, annual contact with new and established writers (one week every June) at The Clearing, here in Ellison Bay, Wisconsin, I have been beyond fortunate in witnessing writers, all ages, but young in particular, find their voice, nurture it, question it, put it down on paper, and for some, like Emily, really give it voice (performance personified). Let it rip, fly high, dramatically, poetically off the page, bouncing off walls, banging on windows, breaking free.

Not all poetry was meant for life and death upon the printed page. The Beats knew this in their very humming bones. (Where’s the stage, man? The platform? The soapbox? I got things to say, to shout! Gotta let it out! You gotta listen!)

You can’t go back to Kerouac and Company and not hear Jack jazzin’ it, Ginsberg howling, Corso cavorting, Snyder contemplatively-echoing from far off Western/Eastern mountain tops, or Ferlinghetti freewheeling it in a slow dance all his own.

And lest we forget ‘the women-a-the-Beat’ who also took the stage front and center, there was among them in the ‘70’s (is still) the ‘enchanter’ Anne Waldman (FAST SPEAKING WOMAN, and Other Chants, City Lights, 1975, Pocket Poet Series #33).

It’s standing in the corner
Pointing to the biggest
Asshole in the room
Saying,
“Go home with that guy
‘Cause he’s got an ego
Big enough to compensate
for your lack of confidence.”

And he’s ‘sexy’ with his
Lack of interest
Leave you with the check
Lying naked in your bed
Sort of attitude that,
for some reason,
Is somehow
Totally irresistible.

‘Cause I don’t
Have bad judgment,
But my libido does.
So take it,
Honestly,
‘Cause I don’t want it.
After three drinks it
Drowns itself in
Desperate attraction.

And you’re looking
Pretty good right now
‘Cause you’re artistic
And unemployed
And there’s nothing
More attractive
To my drunken libido
Than a man with no purpose
“Cause his purpose
Rest somewhere between
My libido
And the morning after.

Hey,
How you doing,
You totally unattractive
Regret waiting to happen?

“Cause I’m a lonely woman
With a Queen size bed.
That’s right,
Queen size,
With a velvet comforter,
And my libido’s making
Hint hint bedroom eyes at you
While I’m trying to
Resist her insistence that
You’re a diamond in the rough,
When you’re really just another
Snake in the grass.

So,
Take my libido, please
“Cause it does me
No good.

Bliss by Emily Rose

I met you when I was nine,
Perhaps I was too young.
You had always intrigued me,
Even before our introduction.

Our affair began in my basement—
Hidden from my mom.
It only took a moment
To be addicted to your taste.

You weren’t yet deep inside me,
It was a prelude to our life.
For at that moment I knew
That I’d be with you always.

I was not your first lover.
Many have known you through the years,
But if they knew the danger,
They would have walked away.

other Norbert Blei web pages

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Please click the arrow to see the complete list of writers on Poetry Dispatch & other Notes from the Underground, then click a writers name to see all entries. The number next to the writers name indicates how many postings belong to this category.

The coop has flown

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Norbert Blei | 1935 – 2013

On the back roads of Door County again

Norbert Blei – 2012

Photo by Bobbie Krinsky

Norbert Blei – 2012

Photo by Jeffrey Winke

Norbert Blei – 2011

Photo by Sharon Auberle

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